Conservators and restorers are still awaiting the introduction of professional warrants. Photo: Darrin Zammit LupiConservators and restorers are still awaiting the introduction of professional warrants. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Conservators and restorers are still awaiting the introduction of professional warrants, nearly five years since these were promised, as fears continue about delicate restoration jobs being entrusted to amateurs.

“We’ve heard many times that the matter had been discussed. The warrant is necessary to ensure some sort of control on who is coming into contact with our cultural heritage,” conservator Pierre Bugeja told Times of Malta.

“You wouldn’t imagine a doctor practising medicine without a licence. The life of an artwork is important too. Certain methods do irreversible damage, so a bad restoration job can ruin a work of art forever.”

Courses in restoration have been offered in Malta for over 15 years but while the framework for warrants already exists no warrants as such have actually been granted due to an anomaly in the law in that there is nobody qualified to grant them.

Back in 2010, then parliamentary secretary Mario de Marco promised that revisions to the Cultural Heritage Act to rectify the state of affairs would be introduced by the following year but five years later the situation remains the same.

Mr Bugeja said qualified conservators typically underwent up to four years of intensive training. Warrants, he added, would ensure that those responsible for restoration works were up to date with the latest methods.

“People working with traditional methods can do more harm than good and the use of certain materials can actually cause further problems down the line,” he said.

Other conservators who spoke to Times of Malta said important conservation jobs were being carried out by people who had simply been through a short training course or who had an amateur interest in art. They suggested that pressure from companies employing unqualified conservators was further delaying the introduction of warrants.

When contacted, a spokeswoman for Culture Minister Owen Bonnici, who had campaigned for the warrants as an Opposition MP, gave no explanation for the delay. She would only say that the ministry had received “suggestions and proposals to introduce warrants” and that an internal evaluation process was under way.

James Licari, president of the Malta Association of Professional Conservators and Restorers, said he had been informed that the issue was caught up in more wide-ranging revisions proposed for the Cultural Heritage Act, which was delaying the introduction of warrants.

He added that the association was in contact with the ministry and that a sub-committee had been set up to discuss the revisions to the law but the proposals still needed to be presented to the minister and to Cabinet.

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